Gardening

FIRST THINGS FIRST: We're trying to fill every square inch of garden space, and today we covered a fair amount of vacant land.

We've added some pepper plants and a pumpkin plant to our forest of tomatoes and tomatillos in our raised bed at the top of the lot. 

Today, we added some lettuce and (cinnamon!) basil to the planter box down by the house, and we separated the three Trinidad Moruga scorpion plants we started from a few seeds into separate pots 

As you can see here, they were rootbound in the pot they were sharing. The kids were a bit aghast when I took a sharp knife and cut the three into their own independent sections. I assured them it was for the best.

Let's hope I was right and they thrive on their own! 

SEASHORE: After some chores at home we took PE in the form of a ridiculously picturesque walk at Golden Gardens, about eight minutes north of home.  

The tide was out, so it smelled gloriously of sea life when we arrived. 

So pretty, a sailboat and snow capped mountains! 

 We noticed that clams loved these patches of seaweed. There were waterspouts aplenty.

Clearly it's crabbing season. This boat attracted a swarm of seagulls as it threw out pots and chum.

We saw this big ship, Midnight Sun, go by. Per our online sleuthing, it's in Tacoma tonight, and it regularly travels between there and Anchorage. 

BRILL BUILDING & WALL OF SOUND:  This morning it was time to play catch up (sound familiar?) on our "History of Rock" class. What a treat that ended up being! 

The lectures we listened to today were primarily about the Brill Building in Manhattan, home to a 'sweat shop' of sorts for songwriters. The building's name comes from a haberdashery in its street level, but on the upper floors, magic was made!

Attribution: Americasroof at en.wikipedia

Before WWII, big band hits were being churned out of there, and afterward, AMAZING songwriters including Carole King, Burt Bacharach, Paul Simon,Neil Sedaka, Neil Diamond and so many more dwelled in cubicles, churning out the hits. 

Not surprisingly, the more songwriters ventured out of the cubicles and started showing up at record sessions to try to articulate exactly how the songs should sound. Out of this movement, Phil Spector became a superstar, with his 'wall of sound' approach. (Though our coursework didn't touch upon it, I did a mini lesson with the kids about Spector's later years, where he thought a good date was getting plastered and terrorizing women with guns to the point he murdered someone. Horrible.)

The era of music in the lectures today was all about the producers, like Leiber and Stoller. LOVE their music! When Rick and Kennedy were kids, we listened to L&S in heavy rotation, and traveled to Seattle to see "Smokey Joe's Cafe," a Broadway show of all L&S hits ("Poison Ivy" "Love Potion #9" and so many more). We went with my grandma and were in the fourth row and were blown away! 

The Coasters recorded many L&S songs, and a found a playlist on YouTube this morning.  It was fun to revisit those songs with Annabelle and CJ, and listening to "Yakkety Yak" and "Charlie Brown."  Needless to say, a dance party broke out.

Movie & More

GO GO GODZILLA! This afternoon, after a two, tortuous week wait (ha ha), the kids finally got to see the new "Godzilla" movie. 

We like to try to see films at the Pacific Science Center theaters when possible because a) it's a little cheaper and b) part of the ticket price supports the educational program there. Win-win.

We went about 90 minutes before movie time to have a chance to explore a little. It was fairly nice (no rain, no wind, and pleasantly warm), so we actually spent most of that time outside, with PSC's water features.

Incredibly, we were the only ones in the whole plaza, so the kids made a beeline for the water wheel, which is usually busy, with a line waiting. 

They had a hard time getting it going for the first time. I coached them to climb higher, faster, and together, and lean forward. Once they got the momentum going, it wasn't hard to keep the wheel in motion. 

Annabelle was proud when she managed to get this 4,500 pound sphere of stone moving all by her lonesome.

CJ spent most of his time using an over-sized water gun to get a paddle wheel spinning.

We made our way inside, and instead of going to the main building, we headed to the lobby area downstairs, along Denny Way.  There, the kids played with levers and pulleys.

CJ had no trouble with 250 kg of weight thanks to a little help from tools.  And Annabelle noted how much easier weight was to life with the help of a multi-rope and multi-pulley rigging.

We exited through the gift shop. This shirt caught my eye. I love math humor. :)

FREEBIE:  Lunch today was on Dodgers' pitcher Josh Beckett. Well, kind of. It was actually compliments of Dominoes and my quick fingers on the keyboard.

Beckett pitched a no-hitter on Sunday the 26th, and I knew Dominoes had a "DomiNoNo" promotion, where the first 20,000 fans logging into MLB.com at the appointed time (noon our time on the first business day after the no hitter, in this case) would get a free pizza.

Monday, I logged in in time, and 'won' one of the codes. Today, we redeemed it via the Dominos' Web site. I kept waiting for a catch, but it was quick, easy, and when we went to pick up the 'hand tossed, medium pan pizza,' it was entirely free!

The kids gave it four thumbs up!

THEY DID IT!: Today, "space hackers" from Project Reboot working at the Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico announced they "are now in command" of NASA's 35-year-old ISEE-3 spacecraft, which left for dead over a decade ago. (I first wrote about it back on .)

Next on their 'to do' list: Trying to assess the spacecraft's health and then, hopefully, get the craft to fire its engines and return it to an orbit nearer Earth. 

Read all about it here: http://spacecollege.org/isee3/we-are-now-in-command-of-the-isee-3-spacecraft.html

WEEK IN A DAY: We spent the morning knocking out another week's worth of lectures in our AstroTech: The Science and Technology behind Astronomical Discovery course. We learned lots about infrared detectors today, and how charge-coupled devices (CCDs) are made (they're vital in digital imaging via telescopes), and how semi conductors work. Super interesting stuff!

THE LONGEST SEASON: We went to the public library today to pick up a movie on hold and, of course, came home with a stack of books.  One of the stack was "The Longest Season" by Cal Ripken, Jr.  I grabbed it off the shelf because I'm a sucker for books about baseball. 

I asked the kids to read it to me as I drove us home. Before they started, I told the kids about Ripken's "iron man" record, and how he surpassed the legendary Lou Gehrig when earning that title.

I'm not gonna lie, the kids were about two pages into the book and I was rolling my eyes. Right off the bat, Ripken was telling readers how he basically reinvented the shortstop position, how he was the American League MVP his second season with the Orioles, who won a World Series that year, how durable he was, on and on.  I didn't say anything out loud, but I was thinking, "OK, Ripken, we all know how awesome you were, you don't have to tell us."

But then a funny thing happened. Ripken spent the balance of the book recounting his disastrous 1988 season, where his team lost their first 21 games and his dad was fired as manager of the Os along the way. The morale of the story - winning is easy, it's losing that you learn from. 

Good on Cal for making that point. And yes, "The Iron Man" *did* reinvent the shortstop position and no, I didn't roll my eyes while typing that. :)

Space Cases

Image Credit:  NASA/Joel Kowsky
LIFT OFF:  See that streak in the sky? It's three humans rocketing toward space.

Specifically, it's Expedition 40 flight engineers on their way to the International Space Station, a six-hour, four-orbit trek.

On board are (top to bottom) NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Alexander Gerst of Germany, and cosmonaut and Soyuz Commander Max Suraev of Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency.

 Image Credit:  NASA/Joel Kowsky

The trio are scheduled to remain on board through the end of November.

They blasted off at 3:57 a.m. from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Conveniently for us, that meant a 12:57 p.m. Pacific time lift off time, just a couple minutes before the kids' science class.  I brought the NASA TV coverage up on a laptop and as the kids were arriving for class, they got to see the launch.

They had great questions. I was surprised when one boy started asking questions about Skylab. I surprised myself by actually knowing the answers about when it flew, what year it fell onto Australia, and the serious damage it had to its solar array and a solar heat shield during launch. (Thank goodness we've met a couple of Skylab astronauts who shared those stories with us, and they stuck!)

Another kid mentioned icy relations between Russia and the United States at the present and seemed surprised an astronaut and a cosmonaut were sharing a rocket ride. I told him that despite differences on the ground, in space it's still the International Space Station and we have to work together up there.

When the NASA coverage showed the men in the cockpit, on their way to orbit, I pointed out the stuffed animal (a giraffe) suspended by a string. I told the kids that those astronauts have children about their age, and that the animal was a gift from the NASA astronaut's kids, and that it's a tradition for astronauts to use an item hanging on a string to let them know when they've escaped the majority of Earth's gravity, as the item will start floating. I made sure to tell them, however, that space is NOT gravity free as people so often say. There's not ZERO gravity in space, there's micro-gravity. Important difference.

After the launch, the kids had to take their final exam on the electricity and magnetism unit they just completed. 

During dinnertime, we watched the Soyuz capsule dock with the ISS. 

Speaking of the Soyuz, check out this great video by the European Space Agency. It's all about the Soyuz's launch sequence. 

And because we hadn't had our fill of space stuff, after the Soyuz docking, we watched NASA coverage of Morpheus' first night flight! Morpheus is a prototype planetary lander and testbed for advanced spacecraft technologies and Autonomous Landing & Hazard Avoidance Technology, based out of NASA's Johnson Space Center.

photo: Project Morpheus @MorpheusLander/NASA

POET LAUREATE: The first news I heard this morning concerned the passing of Maya Angelou.

The 86 year old led a long and remarkable life, and was/is the nation's most famous contemporary female poet. 

Like so many, I'm pretty sure the first place I heard of Angelou was from Oprah Winfrey. But the thing I remember most about her was her amazing poem "On the Pulse of Morning," which she read at President Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration. 

video: Courtesy; William J. Clinton Presidential Library
Before playing it for them, I didn't say anything to the kids, who were sitting across the room and couldn't even see the screen. They just heard the poem.

Afterward, Annabelle remarked about the repetition in it. I told her that was to make clear the theme. 

CJ said, "Based on that poem, think it means a new political right (as in civil rights)."  I think he had it exactly right. Even the poem's title speaks to that. 

NEW MOON: Thanks to the daily email I receive from Earth Sky news, I learned that today marks the new moon. I immediately asked the kids if they knew what that meant. I was surprised when Annabelle piped up with, "It's the very opposite of a full moon. It's when the moon cannot be seen at all."

Good for her, that's pretty spot on. On the day of the new moon, Luna is transitioning from the morning to evening sky, and right now the sun and moon are on the same side of Earth in space, the moon rising with the sun and setting with it, as well, meaning few. (During a full moon, the sun and moon are on opposite sides of Earth.)  

MISSION COMPLETE: Today, the kids finished a months-long math game at their once-a-week school called "Space Quest." They had to solve a pair of story problems each week, roll dice and proceed on a space adventure, battling aliens, asteroids, and other hazards on their journey to a home base. Their progress was tracked in a "Captain's Log," and today, they each reached home. 

WELL THAT DIDN'T TAKE LONG: About 7:30 this morning we read with great interest that LeVar Burton had just launched a Kickstarter campaign to bring back "Reading Rainbow," a great children's television show about books'n'stuff. This go 'round, Reading Rainbow will be presented as a Web-based program, as opposed to a Public Television program, as it was in its first incarnation, from 1983 to 2006. (It won 26 Emmy awards during that timespan!) 

RR's Kickstarter goal was to reach $1,000,000 by July 2. All those kids who grew up with Reading Rainbow helped the word spread like wildfire over social media today and by dinnertime tonight, Burton and Co.'s goal had been surpassed! 

Weekend Rewind

MEMORIAL DAY:  We had a busy Memorial Day.

First, the kids harvested a couple dozen roses from our yard to take to the Fort Lawton military cemetery, now on the grounds of Discovery Park, just a couple of miles from our home. 

There are over 1,100 interments in the cemetery.  

At least as couple of the graves were for Axis power soldiers. For instance, this grave of a German captain is in the cemetery's northeast corner, off by itself.

It's overrun with weeds. Would be interesting to learn how Capt. Marquardt came to be buried so far from home.

Also off by itself is the grave of an Italian POW, Guglieamo Olivotto. He wasn't killed by war wounds, per se. He was murdered.

Though he was a POW, Olivotto, along with other white POWs, was granted access to clubs that African-American soldiers were banned from because of their race. Also, black soldiers were often assigned degrading tasks instead of having POWs so the work.  Tensions and resentment boiled over and on August 14, 1944, and turned into a riot, during which Olivotto was killed (hung from a tree specifically). (There's an article about the Fort Lawton Riot on Wikipedia.)

Forty three soldiers, all black, were court martialed, charged with rioting. They were given just two lawyers (for all of them!) and 10 days to prepare for court. The five-week long trial was a debacle. Evidence was destroyed, covered up, and withheld. The jury was all white officers (hardly a jury of the defendents' peers).  After a 5 week trial, 28 men were found guilty of rioting and two were found guilty of manslaughter. 

A few years ago, Seattle journalist Jack Hamann spied Olivotto's headstone on a trip to the cemetery, and set about researching all he could on the Italian man's death.  He combed archives, conducted interviews and the result was an award-winning book, "On American Soil: How Justice Became a Casualty of World War II."

The book led to U.S. Rep Jim McDermott (D-WA) introducing HR 3174, a bill demanding that the US Army reopen the Fort Lawton case.  In Oct. 0f 2007, the U.S. Army Board for Correction of Military Records found that the prosecutor (Leon Jaworski ) had committed "egregious error" during the case. As a result, all of the convictions were overturned and the defendants were issued retroactive honorable discharges. Surviving defendants, and the estates of those who had died, were deemed entitled to "all rights, privileges and property lost as a result of the convictions," including "all due pay and allowances," per the Wikipedia article. .

If you want to read more, here's a link to a Seattle PI story on the Fort Lawton Riot: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/The-almost-forgotten-Seattle-story-that-may-2115203.php

In the afternoon, we headed to Mariners game.  There were a number of special recognition moments before and during the game. During the National Anthem, each team took the field with vets standing by their sides.

 

Instead of the standard MLB teams' flags, all the the stadium flags were Old Glory.

Many members of the military were in attendance, in uniform. A sharp-dressed Marine Corps member was a few rows in front of us.  Christian went down to thank him for his service and the two chatted for several minutes.  Turns out the young soldier is from Somalia. He came to the U.S. at age 15. He speaks impeccable English, and is a radio operator and linguist for the Marines, stationed in Yakima right now.

We took a few minutes to visit the Mariners Hall of Fame and the Baseball Museum of the Pacific Northwest on the main concourse, not too far from home plate.

There, we checked out a ball from the first game at the Kingdome ...

and the first game at Safeco Field.

We also checked out Harold Reynolds' very gold Gold Glove award.

There's a nice display of former Mariners manager (and Seattle Pilots player!) Lou Piniella. We're looking forward to seeing his official installment in the Mariners' Hall of Fame later this summer.

The game was lots of fun, as the Mariners scored early and often, and the Angels hardly made a peep, offensively. I kept a book for the first time in a long time, and taught the kids some of the rules of scorekeeping.

The kids did a happy dance with the last out of the ninth, and the Mariners won handily.

This weekend also included a trip to a local nursery, where we ogled but didn't buy anything ...

and a serene beaver and duck pond in Discovery Park on a Saturday morning stroll.

ON DECK: Launch alert! Tomorrow, three men will be packed into a Soyuz and shot toward the International Space Station.

NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, cosmonaut Maxim Suraev of the Russian Federal Space Agency and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst are set to lift off at 12:57 p.m. Pacific time Wednesday.

Here's a photo of their ride heading for the launch pad via rail.

NASA TV coverage begins at noon Seattle time, and will include video of the prelaunch activities leading up to and including the crew members boarding their spacecraft.

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

Image Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

Memorial Day